Congress powerbroker, sports czar, undone by CWG scandal: Suresh Kalmadi’s complicated political legacy

A former Indian Air Force pilot who made his mark in Pune politics and rose through the Congress ranks after coming to Sanjay Gandhi’s notice, Suresh Kalmadi fell out with the party leadership and was left out in the cold after his name cropped up in the 2010 Commonwealth Games scam, and he was arrested the following year.

The former Union Minister and seven-term MP, including three as a Lok Sabha MP from Pune, died in a city hospital in the early hours of Tuesday after undergoing prolonged treatment for an illness. He was 81.

Last year, Kalmadi had received a reprieve after a Delhi court accepted the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) closure report on money laundering allegations against him linked to the Commonwealth Games scam. Following that, there were calls from sections of the local Congress to rehabilitate Kalmadi, who played an important role in Pune’s development. Though the veteran leader was once among the Congress favourites with close ties to the Gandhis, he was suspended in 2011 following his arrest. He spent nine months in prison before the Delhi High Court granted him bail in that case. After his release from prison, the Congress leader moved away from politics as the Congress also virtually froze him out, not extending any invitation to him for party events and not seeking him out even after the disastrous results nationally, as well as in Maharashtra, starting in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

Kalmadi’s political career took off in 1977, when he was appointed president of the Pune Youth Congress. However, that was not because of the Gandhis but Sharad Pawar, another young leader who was his contemporary and a rising star who would become the Maharashtra Chief Minister the following year. In 1978, Kalmadi contested his first electoral battle, from the Shivajinagar Assembly seat, but lost to the Janata Party’s Shanti Naryan Naik.

When Pawar rebelled against the Congress government of Vasantdada Patil in Maharashtra and broke away with 40 MLAs to form the Progressive Democratic Front (PDF) government, Kalmadi followed him into the new party. However, this political experiment did not last long and after Indira Gandhi’s Congress made a comeback nationally in 1980, it dismissed the Pawar administration. Kalmadi, however, stuck with Pawar and the Congress (S) and was rewarded as he was sent to the Rajya Sabha in 1982, the first of his four terms in the Upper House of Parliament.

Though he had thrown in his lot with Pawar, Kalmadi had already come to the attention of the Gandhis when he started making his mark in local politics, and this link to the Congress’s first family proved to be useful later for his political rise.

In 1977, Kalmadi and another activist had thrown slippers at then Prime Minister Morarji Desai’s car and protested when he was visiting Tilak Smarak Mandir in Pune. Sanjay Gandhi noticed him following this and in 1980, he was introduced to Rajiv Gandhi at the National Defence Academy’s graduation parade. The two struck an instant rapport because of their past careers as pilots.

Kalmadi’s golden years in the Congress began after he returned to the Congress along with Pawar in 1986. His rising clout had also seen him in top positions at sports bodies in the country, starting with the Maharashtra State Athletics Federation president in 1980 and selection chairman of the Athletics Federation of India in 1987. He made a name as a sports organiser, starting the Pune Marathon in 1983, and this helped strengthen his political capital.

He served as the Union Minister of State for Railways for a year (1995-96) and was first elected to the Lok Sabha in 1996, which also marked the start of his run as the Indian Olympic Association president that came to an end only in 2011.

Besides the marathon, Kalmadi in 1989 also took the initiative to start the Pune Festival, a cultural event held during the Ganesh Utsav festivities, the Pune Vyaspeeth, and the National Games. The Vyaspeeth was an apolitical forum where experts and intellectuals from different fields gathered to put forth their views for the development of Pune. He was close to top industrial houses such as the Bajajs and the Firodias, and links helped him find sponsors for his events, according to Pune Congress old-timers who knew him.

Despite another brief parting of ways with the Congress in the late 1990s, Kalmadi’s grip over Pune politics continued and he was back in the Lok Sabha from the constituency in 2004 and was re-elected in 2009. This, however, remained the last high point in his political career as the CWG scandal that marked his decline came soon afterwards.